Readers’ wildlife photos

Reader Liz Strahle sent us some lovely bird photos. Her notes and IDs are indented.

Here are some wildlife pictures. The house sparrow, cedar waxwing, and double-crested cormorant are new birds for me. There are a couple of turkey vultures eating dead animals. I believe the first one is an opossum. The second dead animal might be a beaver or a groundhog.

The double-crested cormorant’s eyes appeared to be turquoise. I believe this one is a juvenile.

Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos). When I mentioned that I loved this photo because I’m a mallard-phile, Liz responded:

I think I mentioned that picture in one of the duck posts in a comment a little while back. When I took the picture, I really had no idea why they were standing on one foot. It looked like they might be dancing even though that was probably not what they were doing. When I saw your post about Honey standing on one foot, I thought of those ducks. Someone in the comments suggested that it might have something to do with thermal regulation or something similar. That seems to make sense but I don’t know.

Observing the turkey vultures gliding so beautifully is one of the reasons I became interested in birds a few years ago. They are just so beautiful. When I captured the shot of the first turkey vulture with the opossum, I was thinking, “Um….they are still…um…really beautiful.” Ha. When they glide together like pairs of figure skaters, they are mesmerizing.